National Cancer Institute

at the National Institutes of Health

Treatment Option Overview

Successful treatment generally requires the combination of effective systemic chemotherapy and complete resection of all clinically detectable disease. Protective weight bearing is recommended for patients with tumors of weight-bearing bones to prevent pathological fractures that could preclude limb-preserving surgery.

Randomized clinical trials have established that both neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy are effective in preventing relapse in patients with clinically nonmetastatic tumors.[1]; [2][Level of evidence: 1iiA] The Pediatric Oncology Group conducted a study in which patients were randomly assigned to either immediate amputation or amputation after neoadjuvant therapy. A large percentage of patients declined to be assigned randomly, and the study was terminated without approaching the stated accrual goals. In the small number of patients treated, there was no difference in outcome for those who received preoperative versus postoperative chemotherapy.[3] It is imperative that patients with proven or suspected osteosarcoma have an initial evaluation by an orthopedic oncologist familiar with the surgical management of this disease. This evaluation, which includes imaging studies, should be done before the initial biopsy, because an inappropriately performed biopsy may jeopardize a limb-sparing procedure.

Recognition of intraosseous well-differentiated osteosarcoma and parosteal osteosarcoma is important because these are associated with the most favorable prognosis and can be treated successfully with wide excision of the primary tumor alone.[4,5] Periosteal osteosarcoma has a generally good prognosis [6] and treatment is guided by histologic grade.[5,7]